Here's some data for Japan; Apple has about 1/3 of the smartphone market, almost all of the rest is Android. There's generally little difference in device capability or pricing between iphones and non-iphones in Japan, so it's not a low-end vs. high-end thing, and two out of the three major carriers heavily push the iphone, so it's certainly not marketing....
> There's generally little difference in device capability or pricing between iphones and non-iphones in Japan
Actually Japan is probably one of the few places you could say Android phones are more capable as a lot of them have 1Seg tuners. :)
The iPhone plans in Japan also tend to me more expensive (partly due to LTE on the iPhone 5).
The situation is also slightly odd in Japan as the historically largest provider (docomo) doesn't distribute the iPhone. They are however rapidly losing customers possibly because of this:
http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2012/4/1_in_...
> I don't see how to can make a reasoned argument that Android is objectively vastly superior
It's an opinion... :]